


Addictive Tendancies

by xXScreenSaverXx



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Drug Abuse, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, M/M, Not much plot, Substance Abuse, ahhhh such is the life, fluff at the end, its pagan but you should still be aware of it, lmao i never have any plot its a weakness, lol i replayed the game and sent a solid 6 hours just writing random shit, pagan is a pining mess but he doesnt quite realise it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-28
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-10-30 01:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20805902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xXScreenSaverXx/pseuds/xXScreenSaverXx
Summary: Pagan's struggled with addiction all his life, and Ajay is one hell of a drug.





	Addictive Tendancies

**Author's Note:**

> warning for excessive drug use! pagan is a wreck and we love him but god he's a mess. don't do hard drugs! stay safe y'all

Pagan was no stranger to drugs. Hell, they made up the majority of his childhood, his memories a mess of strung-out colours and disassociated bliss, any actual events or meaningful relationships long gone. Even now, on a bad day he’s used to finding himself reaching for the small tins of various pills and powders hidden around the estate, the next hit never too far away.

So it’d be fair for him to say that he’d got a pretty fucking solid first-hand relationship with drugs.

There was a time when that thought made him sick. When he’d feel faint coils of guilt in his gut at the disgusted glances Yuma would throw his way when she’d catch him lying face down, wallowing in his own vomit and self-hatred. There were the days when he’d look in the mirror and see himself reflected back, eyes bulging and red in their sockets, skin pale enough to suit the grave, looking for all the world like the monster that, once upon a time, many years and thousands of miles ago, he’d sworn he’d never become.

And then there was Ishwari. There was the terror and anger that he saw in her eyes, reflecting his own emotions right back at him whenever she found him curled in a corner, foaming at the mouth with veins, dark enough to be black, tracing their ways up his forearms and highlighting the mess of needle scars and memories lost to the void.

For a short time, at least, she’d quelled the urges within him long enough for him to pull himself together. In a way, he hated her for that – if only because it made it so much, _so much_ worse when he inevitable fell back apart.

His seams ripped; his strings cut. And soon enough, even the force of his love and the memory of the light in her eyes wasn’t enough to save those memories from the shadows following his every move. Little by little, once again, Pagan forgot what it was like to live.

And for years – _many years, too many, so long, so dark_ \- he did what he’d always done: when he went down, he dragged the country down with him.

\--

The day that he got the call that Ajay, Ajay _fucking _Ghale, was in the country, was a bad one. The servants had long stopped commenting on how he’d ‘rolled out of bed on the wrong side’, now entirely of the mind that his bed must just be a particularly bad one, with no _right _sides of which to speak. It had been a while since Pagan had had a good day.

So he understood their shock when he’d run from the room, smoothing his hair down with one hand and pulling on his shoes with the other, an uncharacteristically genuine smile playing across his features. They were much more at ease when he returned that night, eyes red and face dark, blood crusting on the side of his cheek and a contradictory confidence to his hunched stride, promising pain and only pain to anyone who tried to get in his way.

Pagan saw Mohan in the boy. In his frame, in the way that he held himself (although, he’d conceded, that much may have just been down to life in America), and in the poisonous glare that he sent Pagan over the dining table, before proceeding to sneak out and _completely fucking Pagan’s shit up_.

But he also saw Ishwari, and that, for a reason not even he could comprehend, hurt a thousand times more than any jagged insults or dark glares ever could. He saw her, the faint, flickering recollection of the woman he’d loved more than life, in the boy’s eyes, glowing brightly with a fire that promised hurt, angry and fierce and so utterly heart-breaking that Pagan could feel his legs go weak beneath him, threatening to knock him to the dust where he belonged.

He didn’t blame Ajay for running off with the Golden Path for a second. After all – it’s what Ishwari would have done.

\--

For the second time in his life, the days merged and the sunlight lost all meaning, hidden away behind thick drapes and several inches of glass and brick. Time freed itself from its shallow constraints, arching forward and leaving Pagan behind, alone and adrift, occasionally breaking from yet another cocaine binge that sent Yuma away every time, lips peeled back in a repulsed snarl, to reach for his phone, filling Ajay’s phone’s voicemail with some other, always equally ridiculous rant about _fashion _or _the connotations of hot pink when running a dictatorship_, never receiving a reply and never expecting one.

Not once, even in the depths of his misery, did he resent Ajay for returning to Kyrat. Nor was he surprised.

The one thing that Pagan could grasp in his drugged up, strung out state of mind was that Ajay was just _Ajay. _His sweet, courageous Ajay, whose delighted laughter had spent almost two decades echoing through his skull, driving him to the brink of madness before pulling him back again, never quite at the edge.

Yes, Pagan was quite sure that the boy was nobody but himself. Certainly not Mohan, not cruel or cold, but never Ishwari, either, whip-smart but entirely too forgiving.

He kept the memory of Ajay and of what could have been, in a better life. He kept it and wrapped it up tight, even as he reached for the old, worn tin from under his pillow, pulling out that wonderful white powder and preparing to forget it all over again.

\--

It all came to a head sooner than he’d expected, and to say that he’d been unprepared was an understatement. But nevertheless, Pagan had rounded up his staff and sent them all home, for just a minute letting down his guard enough to thank them with a genuine sadness colouring his voice, before directing them all to the exit and watching the last traces of his control collect their things, and leave the room.

He cooked the Crab Rangoon himself. It was burnt and unseasoned, fucking horrendous as meals go, but with each deep swig of wine he found himself taking, he cared less and less. After all, it’s not like Ajay would actually be eating it.

Eventually, with a mind hazy with alcohol and sharp pangs of anxiety and adrenaline acting as a constant reminder that _this is it, this is where it all finally fucking ends_, Pagan sat down, leaving his gun on the counter, swinging his legs up to rest on the table as he leant back to watch the last dregs of sunlight ease over the horizon, painting the as world black and as bleak as he felt inside. With a heavy heart, he closed his eyes, breathed a sigh, and waited silently to die.

He should have known it’d be too good to be true.

Ajay came as he always did, a storm in human form, his careful mask of control slipping just enough for Pagan to see the damage underneath. He’d stood there for a second, taking in the scene before him, pointing his gun squarely at Pagan, who did nothing but stare right back, eyes unwavering and a small, unbothered smile playing across his face.

Neither of them missed the flash of disappointment that swept Pagan’s features when the gun was lowered, nor the stuttering mess of regret and sadness that played out across Ajay’s.

“So this is it, huh? This is how it all ends,” Ajay bit out sourly, palms shaking as his fingers dug into the grip of the pistol. “All of the shit you’ve pulled and you’re just going to what? Sit there and take it?” The words were spat out, but the anger wasn’t enough to seem genuine.

Pagan let out a shallow chuckle in response. “We’ve both played this game long enough to know how this goes, my boy,” he slurred. “Why the hesitance?”

Ajay looked back in indignant shock, face almost scandalised. “Are you- Are you _drunk?”_

“Aren’t you?”

Ajay choked slightly, waving the gun around almost maniacally. “This isn’t how this is supposed to go,” the boy groaned, running a hand through his hair. “You’re supposed to deliver an evil speech, then I’m supposed to shoot you, and then I can just _go home!”_

Pagan let out another dry chuckle, gazing at Ajay with a mix of despair and amusement. It was obvious that Kyrat hadn’t been kind, with drying blood spattering his (horrible, appalling) clothes and bandages wrapping his arms and torso almost entirely. And yet the boy remained a marvel, still so expressive despite his attempts to appear aloof, familiar yet unfamiliar eyes peeking out from his long thatch of hair that _somehow_, despite Ajay having been living in the wilderness, still looked too soft for its own good.

“Ajay, I agree completely. Now, which speech would you prefer? Would you rather that I explain my motivations, alongside a convenient PowerPoint? I could rip off a speech from one of those superhero movies, I’m sure I could remember one if given a couple of minutes. Or would you rather I skip all of that and just start singing ‘Be Prepared’, instead?”

Ajay suddenly looked incredibly tired. He heaved a long sigh, eyes almost dim, weighed down by responsibility. “Pagan, why am I here?”

“Because it’s your ‘duty’ to free the country? At least, I assumed that’s why you’ve been killing my men and ruining my bell towers.”

“No, I mean-“ he cut himself off and his shoulders slumped. “Pagan, if you wanted me dead you could have killed me in less than a week. It would have taken a couple of days at most.” Ajay raised his face to stare Pagan in the face, eyes beseeching but his voice was still cold. “So why the hell haven’t you done it already? Is this all just a joke to you?”

Pagan took a beat to search for an answer, and came up blank, finding that there wasn’t any excuse he could give.

“My boy, you…” he looked for the right words. “You represent everything that I once had, everything that I was foolish enough to let slip through my fingers.” His voice wavered as Pagan found himself overcome with emotions that he hadn’t let himself feel in years. “You truly are the best of us, Ajay. I couldn’t take that away.”

He let himself slouch forward, staring at the ground.

Ajay was the best thing that had come out of Kyrat. The money and the land were nothing more than a materialistic, temporary placeholder. Ajay was something more, intangible and entirely new, incorruptible. He was foreign, an unknown that should have been terrifying, but gave Pagan a sense of belonging, even from all those miles away in the comfort and emptiness of his estate.

Ajay was addictive, in his own way, never around from more than a glimpse, one that would never fail to send Pagan reeling for another hit, falling back into old habits in a way that he hadn’t felt for years. His smiles were like smoke, bright eyes glowing sweetly in the flickering light of the gunfire that followed him incessantly, the unmistakable scent of gunpowder and burned-out matches filling Pagan’s lungs like nicotine.

Pagan had taken a lot of drugs in his time, but had never felt such a rush than when Ajay, grip still tight around the handle of the gun, bit out a hesitant but wary smile, asking in a voice rough with secrets and things unsaid, “I could kill you now. I should.”

And then the gun was placed gently on the table, a chair scraped back across the floor, and Ajay joined him at the table. “But I haven’t tried the Crab Rangoon yet, I suppose.”

Pagan smiled, the most genuine he’d been in years. “I’m afraid it’s a little bit burnt, my boy.”

Ajay rolled his eyes. “I lived in America. Trust me, I’ve had worse.”

Then Ajay smiled again, a small, soft thing, that sent Pagan reeling further than any drug had before, his palms feeling clammy.

It was a small offering, but one that he would take without hesitation. The peace wouldn’t last, not at all - the two were at a standstill, one that Pagan didn’t have the ambition or desire to win. But for an hour, at least, Pagan would find peace in Ajay’s presence, able to pretend that the outside world was mere fiction, leaving his own worries at the door to be bothered with at a later date.

The irony was there, and even Pagan could find the humour in it. He’d spent his life disconnected, escaping from reality in whichever ways he could, a monster in his own right with the weapons and the scars to prove it. Through the drugs and the alcohol, compulsive gambling and his reckless pursuit of adrenaline, one thing remained prevalent. He’d walked the tightrope between mania and depression, digging a grave that resembled less of a hole and more of a fucking canyon.

Ajay was like nicotine, a craving that never went away, an addiction in its purest form. Pagan hadn’t stood a fucking chance. For the first time in thirty years, there was no craving for drugs or pills, nor to immediately wipe his mind and lay sprawled, whacked out on the floor where some unfortunate servant would inevitably trip over him.

Instead, his maelstrom of a mind was quiet, and despite the inevitable fires that burned outside, Pagan reached his hand up to his face and found himself smiling. This might be one memory he wouldn’t mind keeping.


End file.
